The values can be used with the access tag or with tags associated with particular forms of transport. For example access=delivery on a service road tagged with highway=service would imply that all transport modes can use the entrance for delivery only. A building entrance available for pedestrian customers only would be tagged entrance=yes and foot=customers. In addition to transport mode restriction, there may be restrictions relating to height, weight, restrictions may vary by time and day and restrictions may be directional.

Access tag values

No access for the general public. Consider using additional access (like foot=yes or bicycle=permissive, etc.) to indicate who can use the element. If only specific transport modes are forbidden, for example, at a vehicle no-entry sign, use a more specific restriction like vehicle=no or motor_vehicle=no over the general key access.

Only when travelling to this element/area; i.e., local traffic only. NOTE: This restriction often only applies to certain modes of transportation (e.g., only to vehicles). Take care to use the right transport mode restriction; e.g., vehicle=destination when only vehicle traffic is restricted.

A preferred or designated route for the class of traffic specified by the tag key, such as foot=designated, in general this means that there is a (explicit) sign saying something like "pedestrians allowed", or a pedestrian icon.

Permitted for some vehicle (or animal) only if you dismount. Mostly used for bicycle: Use bicycle=dismount when people are not permitted to cycle (e.g., through a graveyard) but are allowed to dismount and bring the bike. See Bicycle#Bicycle Restrictions.

The access conditions are unknown or unclear. For the access key, where users might assume access rights by definition or some default, this makes it explicit that the actual situation is not known (since an absent access tag might also be mistaken by some users as being compliant to an assumed default). These tags should therefore not be removed without replacing them with a better alternative

Access time and other conditional restrictions

Restrictions may be limited to a particular time or day. Or they may limit the access for vehicles over a certain weight. Such conditions can be tagged as shown in these tagging examples:

Only destination access is permitted during 8am and 5pm on Mondays to Fridays:access:conditional=destination @ (Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00)

Motor vehicles heavier than 5 tonnes may only access this street for the purpose of delivering goods:motor_vehicle:conditional=delivery @ (weight>5)

Please note that the above tagging style can be used to replace the following time dependent restrictions. It has been suggested that they be deprecated and should therefore no longer be used.
date_on=*, date_off=*, day_on=*, day_off=*, hour_on=*, hour_off=*. Also note, that using of conditional tag assumes overt indication of value, which mostly suites as a default value. For example, if access is open on one part of day (on this part of day access=permissive) and is closed on other part of day (on this part of day access=private), we have a situation, when we should mark the object with a tag access=permissive or access=private. There is no concrete, precise and universal algorithm to define, if we should use permissive or private in concrete situation, but we can definitely say, that in such case we can't use access=yes (or not use tag access at all), because access=yes (or absence of tag access) means round-the-clock open access for general public.

Size and statutory restrictions

A number of statutory restrictions based on height, width, weight, etc. can also be defined. A assumed units are the appropriate SI unit and should be specified without any suffix. For lengths use metres, for weights use metric tonnes and for times use hours. Decimal numbers should include a decimal point. Exceptions include speeds which should be in mph in places where speed limits are defined in these units and times which can include a suffix of 'days' if appropriate.

Buses are not allowed on the leftmost lane of a road with three lanes in forward direction. The rightmost lane is a designated bus lane.

Transport mode restrictions

Use the access=* key to describe a general access restriction that applies to all transport modes.

In theory, adding access=yes to highway=footway could be read as changingdefault restrictions (which usually are foot=yes and vehicle=no for highway=footway) to yes, highway=footway + access=yes means "road, which is open for all pedestrians and vehicles".

In practice, this combination is often used by mappers to modify (rather than enlarge) default values: for example, access=permissive with highway=steps is very unlikely to be traversable by a truck, whatever the tags may say.

Where different restrictions apply to different modes of transport then mode specific tags can be used. These modal tags each have a place in a hierarchy in which keys become narrower in scope as they branch out from the root.

For example:

access=no, bus=yes means that only buses are allowed to enter (for example a road only for buses)

access=yes, motor_vehicle=no means that all transport modes except motor vehicles can use the element

access=forestry, foot=permissive implies that forestry vehicles can use the route legally and that pedestrians can use it by currently but that permission may later be withdrawn.

See examples section for more examples.

Land-based transportation

This hierarchy is different in each country. So it's possible that your country has vehicle classes which aren't in this list, doesn't have some which are, and some vehicle classes may even have a different definition from the one listed below:

tanker:singlehull=* (special coverage for single hull as most of Europe and US have more restrictive rules for single hull tankers than for double hull. The general tag is for double hull if this tag is in use.)

Nodes, ways and areas

Tags of "access" group can be used for nodes, ways and areas. There are different priorities in OSM-community, where to put access tag: to area (usually it is a square, which have some specific conditions of access), to line (usually it is roads inside square) or to node (usually it is gate in barrier, which surrounds square, where there is a possibility to enter the area). Note that access tags mark legal status of territory and barriers and warning signs are only physical reflections of restrictions in area. In such manner, area with private status should have appropriate values, even there is no surrounding barrier or it is broken. Note, that different entrances can have different access values and different roads inside area can have different access values too. For example, we have area with permissive access - so we mark it with access=permissive. But there are several entrances, one of which is designated for all people, and other - only for persons, which have key. So we mark one entrance with access=permissive and other - with access=private. Another example - we have botanical garden with permissive access, which have roads, which are designated for public, and roads, which are designated only for staff of garden. In such case we have access=permissive at one roads and access=private (or access=no) at another.

When you are tagging some area, it is your decision, where to put "access" tags: to area, to entrances or to roads inside area (because nobody can bring you to add some tags somewhere), but removal of correct tags, which were put but someone else, is a mistake (and is close to vandalism). If you like to put tags to areas, do it, if you like to put tags to roads inside areas, do it, if you like to put tags to entrances, do it. But don't delete tags from type of elements, which you don't like.

Examples

bicycle=yes The public has a right of way when travelling on a bicycle.